Local Short Goes Far

Congratulations are in order for everyone at Fat Man Media, the New Mexico-based film production company behind the short film “On the Bus.” The film received five awards at the Indie Distribution Festival, a virtual film festival based out of La Jolla, Calif., earlier this year. Late last month (Feb. 21-24), the short was screened at MAGA, the Macon Film & Video Festival in Georgia. The dramatic short, about a mentally disturbed man riding a city bus, was written and produced by Jonathan Harnisch & Maureen Cooke and was directed by Willie Ford. For more info on the production, log on to fatman.net.

Local theater teams with national arts org to take viewers on a tour of the underground

By Devin D. O’Leary

The Guild Cinema, with its mixture of award-winning documentaries, acclaimed foreign cinema, cutting-edge indie films and cult midnight movies, continues to expand Albuquerque’s viewing options. This month, the venerable Nob Hill theater joins forces with a number of under-the-radar arts organizations to bring the multi-week Other Cinema DVD Warmup series to town. Covering nine flicks in just three weekends, this series of “engaging, lively, provocative and darn interesting movies” aims to expose viewers to a wide range of filmic arts. These subculture-minded documentaries, inventive experimental films and assorted cinematic miscellany are intended as a warm-up/teaser/background education to the upcoming appearance of noted underground filmmaker Craig Baldwin, who will be at the Guild for a three-day festival in April.

Animated documentary paints awful memories with artistic brush

By Devin D. O’Leary

It’s rare in this day and age of instantaneous remakes and endless rip-offs to encounter something even remotely fresh in the film industry. At the very least (and there is quite a bit more to it), Ari Folman’s Academy Award-nominated Israeli film Waltz With Bashir introduces us to an untapped, perhaps wholly original genre: the animated documentary.